THE PRIZE CROSSWORD

There’s an amazing €2,000 prize for the first correct solution drawn at random in our general knowledge Prize Crossword. Entries must arrive by Friday, March 9 (photocopies not accepted). Today’s solution will appear next week and the winner’s name on Sunday, March 25. You must complete the iSpy box to enter. SEE BELOW THE GRID for details on how to enter – and good luck!

Across

1 Media pioneer, former talk show host; the first African-American female billionaire (5,7)

8 A type of brandy made in

the southwest of France (6) 11 A measure of a slope (8)

12 A person who gives blood, skin, or an organ for use in the treatment of another person (5)

13 A jump in figure skating (4) 14 A brownish-grey colour (5) 15 French artist who developed Cubism with Pablo Picasso (7,6)

17 Common name for the national flag of the United Kingdom (5,4)

19 Black substance mixed with gravel and used in roadsurfacing and roofing (7)

23 I Love ---, American TV sitcom originally aired in the 1950s, starring Lucille Ball and Desi Arnaz (4)

24 Surgical removals of foreign

bodies or of tissue (9)

25 1975 film directed by Steven Spielberg, based on a novel by Peter Benchley (4)

26 Belonging to the

distant past (7)

28 1971 hit single by

Rod Stewart (6,3)

31 A breed of small terrier with a long coat and drooping ears (6,7) 34 and 36 Former New Zealand rugby union player who became the youngest ever All Black in 1994 (5,4)

37 A manservant who acts as personal attendant to his employer (5)

38 Narrative poem by

Edgar Allan Poe, first published in the New York Evening Mirror in 1845 (3,5) 39 Showily attractive; flashy

or glittery (6)

40 State capital and largest

city of Utah (4,4,4)

Down

2 A social outcast (6)

3 Puppet character who gave his name to a children’s BBC TV series first aired in 1950 (4,5)

4 Watery liquid that separates from the curd when milk is clotted (4)

5 A European toad of sandy regions, with a greyishbrown body (10)

6 Method for detecting the position and velocity of a distant object, such as an aircraft (5)

7 In communications, a code word for the letter Y (6)

8 Evergreen Mediterranean tree with edible pods which are used as a substitute for chocolate (5)

9 In the Old Testament, a giant from Gath killed by David with a stone from his sling (7)

10 Actor who played Captain Mainwaring in the sitcom Dad’s Army (6,4)

16 Anne ---, second wife of Henry VIII, and mother of Elizabeth I (6)

18 The botanical name

for a rib (5)

20 Alfred ---, Anglo-French Impressionist landscape painter (6)

21 Game bird with a dark plumage mottled with white (6,4)

22 Relating to a nonhereditary condition existing from birth (10)

25 15th-Century French heroine executed for heresy by the English (4,2,3)

27 Uncertain or unreliable (2,5) 29 WC ---, American comedian and actor who starred in 1940’s My Little Chickadee (6)

30 An expression

of sorrow (6)

32 A person sent as a representative from one government or political group to another (5)

33 Heavy ---, rock music

with a fast beat (5)

35 A unit of dry measure equal

to a quarter of a bushel (4)